What is PaaS (Platform as a Service) : Video Guide

What is PaaS or Platform as a Service has been explained through this video guide in simple English to make it easier to any level of reader. We have discussed about Platform as a Service or PaaS either as a model of Cloud Computing or as guides for service provider specific guides for setup numerous time. But, we think this explained easy video tutorial on What is PaaS or Platform as a Service was of much demand from the readers end. This text article is quite important as we have discussed a bit what is not said or mentioned in the video plus here are important links to the other helpful resources.

What is PaaS or Platform as a Service : What Basically We Need to Understand

In the guide, you will see that, we have drawn two diagrams to explain Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and then Platform as a Service (PaaS). Basically, understanding the Cloud Computing service model is of much importance. The drawn diagrams are not fully technically right because we have avoided many complex things, but this is grossly what is needed to make anyone understand What is PaaS or Platform as a Service. 

So, what we mainly have emphasized are :

1. What is Node in Cloud Computing
2. What is IaaS
3. What is Platform as a Service

In the discussion, some points become apparent which you must know for deeper knowledge – Virtualization and Fabric Computing, Networking Basics and Cloud Computing and more such related articles. If you notice carefully, the date of publication of the articles are 2 years, 3 years old from this article. They are not only important and relevant today, they will always remain relevant – they are the basics which will never change.

We gave the examples of Platform as a Service (PaaS) with Red Hat OpenShift and Heroku Cloud. You can do a search within this website with the terms for a good amount of articles and guides for each. We could give example with App Fog too. We avoided not to make the basics difficult to understand.

What is PaaS or Platform as a Service : Back to Basics Again

We wrote Platform as a Service (PaaS) as an Alternative to More Costly IaaS. PaaS is most useful for the young developers, test environments (to minimum if we consider the limitations), a solution for high quality but free hosting. What we discussed is quite simple – Few servers make a node. Few Nodes make a Cloud. The whole thing is IaaS. On this IaaS the software layer of PaaS is sitting on. This is too much simplified (that is why we said that ‘drawn diagrams are not fully technically right’) but easy to understand. We can configure Heroku Cloud with advanced commands from shell like we have shown in the guide Heroku-Cloud-with-php-advanced-commands-for-perfect-setup. But notice the limitation with a full IaaS from guide on Cloud Server like in case of a VNC Setup. We can not use a PaaS in that way but what is offered is not less from users’ point of view.

Definitely, PaaS offers more than a traditional shared hosting, although technically must not be compared. A shared hosting, to some extent has features resembling more with a SaaS and amount of control resembles a PaaS. The web hosting control panel, like cPanel, is the web interface in that case.